


Read the Signs

by OnlySlightlyObsessed1



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 5k to 15k, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Arthur inherits Uther's things and has to deal with them, Getting Together, M/M, Merlin works in a shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySlightlyObsessed1/pseuds/OnlySlightlyObsessed1
Summary: Arthur inherits a small mountain of books with his father's estate. There are too many and they're impossible to read, but the employee at the shop on his route to work is willing to help.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 223
Collections: #ficwip Valentine's Day exchange





	Read the Signs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taurussieben](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taurussieben/gifts).



> This is so much later than I hoped it would be. Unfortunately, school demands a significant portion of my time and brain power, but I'm glad I was able to participate. Thank you, taurusssieben for the impetus to write Merlin fic again. It has a special place in my heart as the fandom that got me to stop lurking and start participating, and a lovely show I got to watch with my family. Thanks also to my roommate, for listening to my sudden renewed interest in Merlin and for throwing fic titles at me

The library door was locked. Arthur resisted the urge to call his all too recently deceased father several choice words. It was easier to be angry than to grieve him, and Uther had always seemed to care more about Arthur as a concept than a person, but irrationally, the locked door felt like a rejection.

"Morgana!"

She shouted back from upstairs, "WHAT?"

"Where are the keys to the library!"

"Gwen has them?"

"GWEN!"

"Don't shout at my girlfriend!"

"What?" Gwen appeared from somewhere.

"Do you have the library keys?"

She produced the key ring out of somewhere and the fifth one they tried was sticky but it did get the door open, finally. Like the rest of the house, presumably, the library would be carefully decorated with overly expensive furnishings that still managed to be a bit ugly, presumably with a low bookshelf and a computer desk and—the door opened and Arthur’s jaw dropped to the floor.

A library indeed. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, built into the wall, in a half height shelf in the middle of the room, stacked one on top of the other on a reading desk and on a side table by the single armchair in one corner. It wasn't just books, plants wilted on the window, large ones, obviously well cared for at one point. Along the far wall was a work bench, interrupting the books, littered with paper and glass instruments and a Bunsen burner. The one room in the house that showed any sign of life or personality and it was this one. Arthur stood still in shocked disbelief.

Gwen said, "Oh my god."

_“What do you mean?”_

“I mean,” Arthur said, readjusting his phone so he could flip off the car that very pointedly did not give him his right of way, “that my father’s library is actually full of books and we had to get an entire separate storage unit for it. Even with that, I’ve got boxes in my spare room.”

Leon was quiet for a second. _“Hadn’t you ever been inside?”_

“Absolutely not. It was like his office.”

Leon made a strange noise that Arthur recognized as being the one he used to use to stop himself from saying anything too Uther-critical when they were younger.

“It’s fucking ridiculous, you can say it,” Arthur told him. Just because his father had died didn’t mean he wanted people walking on eggshells. Not Leon.

_“Sometimes it was like you didn’t even live in that house.”_

“Sometimes he wished we didn’t.”

“Learned to read yet, Princess?” Gwaine called from the back room when Arthur arrived.

Arthur dropped his bag just inside the doorframe and came to look over Gwaine’s shoulder. “Why, you need tutoring?”

The morning’s trip to the elementary school was as expected, and it looked like their afternoon class still had an open spot. Next week’s private sessions were still grayed out, but if the organizer ever got back to them, Arthur was looking forward to it.

“Just wondering what you’re going to do with a million incomprehensible books,” Gwaine said. He was kind of an arsehole, (“Says _you,_ ” Morgana liked to point out whenever he mentioned it) but he was the kind of arsehole you could count on, and he, at least, hadn’t changed his behavior after Uther’s death in the slightest. Sometimes, Arthur appreciated him.

“There has to be someone who can read them,” Arthur protested halfheartedly. Morgana was convinced they were magic, but for all that Uther had raised them with a healthy fear and respect for a religion that would otherwise have seemed dead, Arthur couldn't picture him actually practicing. His father, and magic. It didn't fit. He left Gwaine to keep sorting through the scheduling and emails and went to find the list of equipment they were supposed to bring to the demonstration.

Gwaine hummed doubtfully. “Elena’s going to meet us at the school.”

“Fine by me.”

“Are mats on that list?”

Arthur pulled it out from the bottom of the clipboard, “No.”

“Good.”

“We don’t need them?”

“Email says they have mats in the gym already.”

“Well are you going to help me get the rest of it in your car or not?”

Arthur only went into the shop that afternoon because it was raining. He’d passed it before, on his was to and from work, but its eclectic decoration had never inspired him to think he was its target customer.

There was a bell on the door and his first thought was that it was a bookshop, one of those ones that liked to think they were spiritual and were filled with self-published self-help books and crystals that were probably glass, but then he turned slightly to his left and was face to face with the textbook section, and next to that a section of craft supplies, and he revised his assumption again.

“Afternoon!” Was called to him from slightly further back, behind a shelf, presumably whoever was working the till.

Arthur dripped on their floor. The one day he had dared to be optimistic about the sun.

He moved further into the shop to get out of the way of a woman leaving with a package and was forced to revise his impression of the shop once again, when he saw another sign directing people needing to pick up their prescriptions to the back counter.

“Can I help you find anything?” the same voice asked.

Arthur looked up from the sign to see a man leaning on the counter and looking up at him expectantly.

“Um, no thank you, I’m just here to browse.”

The man nodded and turned away, back to whatever he had been doing before. He was wearing some funny scarf bandanna thing that was neither in fashion nor looked like it served any purpose keeping him warm. Ridiculous.

Well he couldn’t just stand there.

Behind the textbook section there was half a wall stocked with unusual snack foods and bottles, and further to the right the store opened up into a much larger section full of shelves. There were no signs or organizational system that Arthur could see. Three aisles down he did find crystals, but they looked suspiciously real and expensive and none were set into jewelry. One of them was polished so well it almost seemed to glow even in the soft ambient light. Arthur stared at it for a moment, rather entranced, and then shook himself and head back the way he had come. Somehow, he ended up in a previously undiscovered back corner with a table and chairs set along a window, where it was still pouring rain. He wondered if the shop sold umbrellas. Passing the wall of snacks he grabbed something vaguely resembling a granola bar just to have something and approached the man at the till. He didn’t look up, engrossed in studying, was that an actual scroll? Whatever it was, when he cleared his throat softly the man startled violently and slammed a book down on top of the writing. Arthur flinched slightly.

“Hello! Are you ready to check out?”

“I was wondering if you happen to sell umbrellas,” Arthur asked.

The man blinked at him, then looked out the window. Arthur looked as well. In the time it had taken him to walk back from the other window, the rain had stopped and tentative beams of sunlight were breaking through the clouds.

“We do,” the man said, “but between the two of us, I don’t think you’ll need one for the rest of the afternoon. Shall I show you where they are?”

“No, I,” Arthur kept staring at the window a moment longer, “No thank you. Just this, please.”

The man held his gaze for several seconds before handing him a receipt. “Have a good afternoon.”

“You too.”

It stayed sunny for the entire walk back to his building, but by the time he got out of the lift and into his flat the clouds had moved in again and new raindrops were streaking against his window. Arthur stared down at the granola bar he hadn’t wanted and sighed.

The next Thursday the private session ended up canceled and Arthur got to leave work, and Gwaine’s loud entreaties to come out dancing with him and Elena that Friday, a full two hours early. He found himself approaching the shop with the unusual combination of both free time and curiosity. It had been threatening rain all day but the clouds had yet to make good on their promise. Which made it rather a surprise when Arthur pushed open the door and was his in the face with rain. Not actually rain, he realized after a moment of complete disorientation, but water was falling from the ceiling.

“FIRE SUPPRESSION PROBLEMS!” a man’s voice called from somewhere further in the shop and Arthur blinked several times. Yes, that made much more sense. “SORRY ABOUT THAT! WE’LL BE OPEN AGAIN TOMORROW!”

They definitely wouldn’t be open tomorrow, not with their entire stock soaked by their, really quite impressive, fire suppression system, but Arthur left. They seemed to have enough going on, and even though it hadn’t rained, he’d managed to get damp and uncomfortable anyway.

To his great shock, walking to work the next morning the shop was open, and he was distracted the whole day. By the time he was off and had the chance to shop in, it was something of an anticlimax. The shop looked fine, the items on the shelves and the carpet were dry, and the same man with the dark hair and the ridiculous scarf was standing at the till.

“Hello!”

“Your fire suppression system went off yesterday,” Arthur said. The man winced.

“Yeah.”

“But everything’s dry now.”

“Yeah,” the man said again, “like magic.” He winced again, and Arthur resisted the urge to do so as well. A truly awkward beginning to the conversation, and now he was trapped staring at the man with nothing else to say. Worse, the longer they stared at each other the more Arthur became uncomfortably aware that the man was rather attractive, under the mildly pained expression and if you ignored his strange fashion sense.

“Can I help you find anything?” the man asked finally.

He wasn’t going to admit that he’d spent all day thinking about their fire suppression problems because that would make it rather painfully obvious, he had nothing better to do on a Friday. Although since he’d burst in and asked about their fire suppression system first thing, maybe it was obvious already.

“You wouldn’t happen to sell any books on language, specifically, middle or old English?”

“We do,” the man said, sounding as surprised by the question as Arthur was by the answer. He gestured for Arthur to follow him down the side of the store Arthur hadn’t wandered through yet. They walked through many more shelves full of mostly books until they reached a section divided from the rest with a beaded curtain, which the employee held open for him.

“Anything specific you’re looking for?”

“Just . . .” Arthur looked at the shelf directly next to him and saw a title he recognized. Not that he knew what it meant, but, it was the one that had been sitting out on his father’s desk, and now it was sitting on his. “Actually, can you tell me what this book is?”

The employee pulled it out for him. “It’s an encyclopedia, of plants.”

Arthur waited, but the man only blinked at him expectantly.

“Is that what you’re looking for?”

“No, well, I already have that one actually,” Arthur admitted, and the man’s obvious bemusement grew.

“In that case,” he stuck out a hand, “I’m Merlin. Why don’t you tell me what you’re interested in.”

Arthur took his hand by force of habit. “Arthur. Pleased to meet you. I’ve just inherited a collection of books, all,” he waved at the shelves surrounding them, “and I have no idea where to start.”

Merlin’s confusion cleared, although what he thought he understood certainly wasn’t clear to Arthur. “Of course. Something general.” He moved off down the aisle and Arthur trailed after him. They stopped at a break in the shelf and Merlin stood on tiptoes to pull out a book from the top. “Try this.”

Arthur flipped through it briefly. He couldn’t read it, and he wasn’t exactly sure what Merlin thought he was going to get out of it, but he was starting to second guess his impulse to ask about the books, and Merlin looked so pleased with himself. He could always keep struggling through with google translate and Wikipedia.

“Alright,” he said.

Merlin beamed at him, and his smile only made him more attractive, which Arthur couldn’t help but resent. “Great! Gaius can help you at the till.”

The man at the till hardly blinked to see the book he had chosen. “Come back anytime,” he was told, and released into the world with “something general” tucked safely in his backpack.

“Look what I found in that shop,” Arthur said, interrupting whatever Morgana and Gwen had been looking at on Gwen’s phone as he slid into the booth across from them.

“What shop?”

“The one I told you about.”

“The touristy one?” Morgana asked.

“Yes, but it isn’t really,” Arthur said, the shop itself wasn’t really the point. He pulled the book out of his bag and waited for their reactions.

“It’s in middle English too,” Morgana noted.

“Yes!” Arthur said excitedly.

Gwen was flipping through it in confusion. “What are you going to do with it?”

“What do you need with more books you can’t read?” Morgana said, exasperation seeping into her voice.

“The employee suggested it.”

“But you can’t _read_ it,” Morgana said again.

Arthur took the book back, glowering at her, and she sat back, letting out a slow breath.

“Alright, even if you read the books, what are you expecting to find? Uther’s gone.”

“I don’t understand why you aren’t even curious,” Arthur said. “After everything, how hard he campaigned against any kind of magic use, and you don’t think it’s strange?”

“Of course I do.” The waiter almost approached the table, and Arthur caught Gwen hastily waving her away. Morgana leaned forward, she looked very serious. “I just don’t think it’s that much of a mystery. Maybe he practiced, or maybe he didn’t, it doesn’t change anything for me. He was horrible our whole childhoods, excepting those very brief moments, and I didn’t care to have him in my life when he was alive. I don’t care to have him in my life now that he’s dead, either. Can’t we let it go?”

She held his eyes but Arthur looked away as she finished speaking. Really, he understood, he did. He understood her perspective on it so much better than he understood his own. If he could have just left the books alone in the storage locker or donated them all to whoever might take books written in a half dead language, he would have. But he just couldn’t bring himself to. Morgana was still looking at him with the same expression, the ‘please’ that she hadn’t said was written all over her face. He managed a half smile and she sat back, relieved.

“Yeah, we can let it go.”

It took Arthur a full week to give up on the book he’d bought. He hated to think Morgana was right, but it was no easier to read than any of the others, and although what little he managed to read did seem to be a nice general introduction to magic practice, that wasn’t particularly helpful to him. The boxes cluttering his study were more clutter than interesting mystery, and it felt strange that he was thinking more about his father now than he had in years of being semi-estranged. So, he wasn’t sure what about the shop kept drawing him back. But the door was just there, everyday on his way to work and back home, unless the weather was really miserable and Elena took pity on him and offered to drive. Sometimes the traffic was so bad Arthur turned her down anyway.

“Afternoon!” It was the same man, Merlin, at the till, and it was probably Arthur’s imagination that he looked pleased to see him. It was his job to look pleased to see people. “How’d the book work out for you?”

Arthur stared at him.

“You didn’t read it,” Merlin guessed, correctly, and Arthur watched the mix of disappointment and amusement creep over his face.

“I can’t read middle English,” Arthur admitted, and the disappointment turned to bafflement.

“Why did you buy a book you can’t read?”

He had nothing to say to that either.

“You just going to stand there?”

“Can you read middle English?” Rude, but Arthur couldn’t pretend it wasn’t in character.

“I can,” Merlin said. He narrowed his eyes a little. “Is that meant to be a polite euphemism, I really can’t tell with you.”

Arthur’s mind went to a series of rather inappropriate places. “It’s not. What for?”

“Magic,” Merlin said very plainly.

“Does that mean you practice?” Arthur said, surprised.

“See, there’s another euphemism.”

Arthur opened his mouth and floundered until Merlin took pity on him and said, “Yes, I have magic.”

“Well that’s good to know.” Merlin appeared to be holding back laughter, but Arthur wasn’t about to be putt of by the fact that he was embarrassing himself. He had enough practice. “Do you—I have a whole collection of books I can’t read and I don’t know where to start. You have any advice?”

“Bring me one of the books you have and I’ll see what I can tell you?”

That, Arthur could do. And Merlin wasn’t laughing anymore. “Do you work tomorrow?”

“I do,” Merlin said.

“I’ll be in when you open,” Arthur said, doing some quick mental math. He wouldn’t be able to stick around long, but he didn’t have to be in until 10, and that gave him a little bit of time to dawdle.

Merlin's eyes went as wide as saucers as Arthur set the book on the table. "My sister's convinced it's magic, but I just can't see it."

"May I--?"

Arthur shrugged and pushed the book towards him. "Of course why else would I have brought it?"

The way Merlin reached out, reverent, the book could have been made of gold.

"I dont think it's an antique, if that's what you're worried about."

"Arthur," Merlin opened it and flipped through the first pages, "it's not an antique but, this is incredibly rare. It's, you have no idea."

"If I had any idea I wouldn't be lugging it around in my backpack to show random bookshop employees now would I?"

"Not a bookshop," Merlin muttered, but Arthur didn't think he was listening. He traced lines of text almost reverently and mouthed something. "You said you have more of these?"

"More books in general. Can't say if they're extremely rare." Merlin didn't reply, he read several more pages, lost in the book, until Arthur prompted him, "It's magic too then?"

"What? Yes, of course."

"Of course," Arthur muttered, "of course our hardliner anti-magic father has a locked room full of books on the subject, no reason to be surprised about that."

"If your father didn't practice magic, I'd be extremely surprised," Merlin put in.

Arthur hardly knew what to think anymore and besides, it was getting late. "I have to head into work soon."

"It's Saturday." Merlin looked up finally.

"And here you are at work."

"This is retail."

"And I teach self-defense classes," Arthur said in mild exasperation. "Which people don't tend to like to schedule in the middle of their work day, for some reason. I said I'd be in by 10."

It wasn't what most people expected to hear from him, so Merlin's startled rapid blinking wasn't unexpected, but was rather amusing.

"Right. You'll be wanting the book back, then.” He said it with such an obvious note of disappointment that Arthur found himself reluctant. The book itself wasn’t particularly valuable to him, and he didn’t actually think Merlin would steal it.

"I can come back and get it this evening,” Arthur suggested. “It’d have to be right when you close but—"

“If it’s really alright,” Merlin hadn’t even let him finish.

It didn’t occur to Arthur until he was only half a block away from work that he was suddenly spending more time with a random wizard who worked in a shop than he did with his own sister.

Elena helped him roll up the mats while Gwaine finished flirting with the last of their evening group. He'd worn the foam suit that day and he was still sweaty and disheveled, but it never seemed to matter.

The girl finally left just as they had finished storing the equipment, which of course left Gwaine immeasurably smug. Elena, bless her, leveled him with a flat look, and Gwaine, who was no idiot, whatever else, trailed after her to the back room. Arthur stuck his head outside to make sure no one was running back frantically to tell them they'd forgotten something, and then pulled the double doors shut.

"Arthur!" Elena called from the back, "You need a ride home this evening?"

"I--" he'd forgotten he'd promised to meet Merlin. "Shit what time is it?"

"Half past four!"

"I have to go!" Arthur said.

"What are you in a rush for?" Gwaine stepped to the side with his hands up in surrender as Arthur scrambled in the chair of coats to find his things.

"I promised I'd meet someone," Arthur said without thinking and immediately heard Elena get excited and saw Gwaine's eyebrows go up.

"Hot date?"

"Not likely." Although if Merlin asked . . .

"Ugly date?"

Arthur ignored him now that he had his coat. "See you Monday."

"Good luck!" Elena singsonged. Arthur pulled the door shut behind him sharply.

Arthur arrived with a minute to spare before the shop closed. There was someone else at the counter, he knew the man’s name at one point, but it was gone now. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Merlin, I left--" Arthur began, but before he could explain further the man was pulling his book out from under the counter.

"He left early today, but you must be Arthur."

It sounded like the beginning of a conversation, but the man said nothing else even after Arthur nodded.

"Well, thank you, I'll, be going now."

"Good evening."

As he went to put the book in his bag the cover opened and a piece of paper slipped out. A phone number. _Text me._

"I vote ‘date’," Gwen said, and Arthur groaned as his phone was passed back around the table.

"Three to one you're out voted." Leon clapped him on the back.

"We've barely talked, it can't be a date."

"That's not how it works," Morgana said. "It's obviously a date."

"He just wants to talk about the books."

"That is an obvious excuse."

"But a good one," Leon said. "You can invite him back home to read the stacks you have cluttering up your spare room."

"I'm not going to do that."

"What a gentleman."

Arthur flipped Morgana off across the table.

Even though it definitely wasn't a date—smiley faces were completely platonic no matter what Morgana said—Arthur's stomach fluttered traitorously to see Merlin already ordering at the cafe when he walked in. And then again, when Merlin turned around to wait and caught sight of him and smiled, and then it kept fluttering the whole time he had to wait to order and get his coffee and sit down and actually say something.

"Good to see you," was what ended up coming out of his mouth.

"Likewise."

There was a beat of silence.

"I brought a couple of different books," Arthur said. He should have asked how Merlin was, or made some kind of small talk, but he didn't know how. Luckily, Merlin either didn't care or didn't notice and only looked excited as Arthur opened his bag. "I don't know what they're about, I didn't bother looking up the titles."

Any awkwardness disappeared in how entranced Merlin was with the books. It also helped squash any of Arthur’s remaining mixed hope and anxiety that this was a date.

“Where _did_ you get these?”

“My father passed away, a half year back,” Arthur replied. Merlin immediately sat up, hands away from the book, looking contrite. Arthur still hated it. “It’s okay. Or—it’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

It wasn’t a date, but that didn’t make it any less inappropriate to unload onto a relative stranger, but Merlin proved to be an intuitive listener, and before Arthur quite figured out how it happened, he was telling him. How his mother had died giving birth and his father had never recovered and how he and Morgana had grown up in a house that felt like it didn’t belong to them, not allowed to go in most of the rooms or step on most of the carpets, and how now, with all his father’s secret books and still far too little affection for the man himself, he felt . . .

“I understand,” Merlin said, and Arthur believed him.

“How’s your boyfriend?” Gwaine asked.

He was drunk, and even more obnoxious than usually. Elena would usually have been keeping him in check, but it was girls’ night, which meant it was guys’ night, which meant everyone was just a little bit more obnoxious than usually.

“Very cute,” Leon said, far too loudly, before Arthur could answer. “I got to meet him.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Arthur insisted, futilely, since no one was listening.

“What does he look like?”

“Dark hair—” Lance began. Arthur put his head down on the table in despair and someone whacked him on the back of the head in a manner he could tell was supposed to be comforting, if it hadn’t been for the alcohol.

“We wouldn’t have to ask if you’d just take a picture,” Percival told him with a frank lack of sympathy.

“I’m not taking a picture of him just because you’re all convinced we’re dating.”

“You are dating, you’re just not having sex, which, that’s on you mate,” Gwaine said.

“Wait,” Leon’s interjection was unnecessary, Gwaine had finished talking, “but are you cuddling.”

“No,” Arthur said, and took his head up off the table to save himself from what turned out to be Leon’s pawing, “we are not cuddling, because! We are not dating.”

They all look at him.

“Checks out,” Leon said. Gwaine shook his head in disappointment.

The worst part was, that when Lance, poor, sober, forever the designated driver Lance, got done dropping everyone off and Arthur was left fumbling with his keys to let himself into an empty apartment, his friends were too right and too wrong at the same time, because he wanted nothing more than to call Merlin and tell him, and he wanted nothing less than to hear the inevitable awkward let down that would follow.

In the morning, Arthur decided he was lucky to be just vaguely dehydrated and not full on hung over, and rolled out of bed to make himself coffee. Tea, Arthur firmly believed, was strictly an afternoon drink.

He took his coffee into the spare room. Merlin had helped him organize the books that he had, the ones in the storage locker were another matter, and they sat in a double row on the bottom of the cheep bookshelf he’d bought for the purpose. It didn’t really fit into the room, but that wasn’t the point. The encyclopedia of plants was separated. Since Uther had left it out, Arthur kept it on top of the bookshelf by itself. Sometimes he looked at the pages that were bookmarked and wondered what Uther could possibly have been doing, but mostly, he tried to reconcile the father he’d known with the person who’d lived in the library. This morning, he just opened the cover. The very first page fell open, and for the first time, he noticed something written on the inside of the cover.

 _Ygraine,_ it said, _with love –Uther_

Arthur stared at the writing for several seconds more, and shut the book again.

Merlin pushed past him the second he opened the door without bother to say hello.

“Are you being chased?”

“It’s cold out!” Merlin said, and shoved a bag of take away into his hands. “I brought fried rice.”

“I have Lord of the Rings,” Arthur said, as that was his end of the bargain.

“Then you may eat my fried rice.”

“You wouldn’t let me starve even if I didn’t.”

“You’re the one who wants me to watch the movies anyway,” Merlin said, trailing after Arthur into the kitchen.

“I don’t understand how you haven’t seen them—don’t tell me you don’t have a TV, you had a DVD player, no excuse.”

Merlin rolled his eyes, as Arthur had anticipated, but he took the beers Arthur handed him and opened them while Arthur dug around trying to figure out if he had any clean bowls.

“We can just eat out of the containers, and I did read the books you know.”

“That only makes it weirder that you haven’t seen the movies.” Arthur narrowly avoided smacking his head on the cupboard door, all for naught, as it appeared that his bowls were a lost cause.

“Want another?” Arthur asked, picking up Merlin’s empty bottle along with his own in the lapse between the first and second movies.

Merlin shook his head, busy with the VCR. “I’ll fall asleep.”

When they sat back down on the couch, Arthur couldn’t help but notice how much closer they were sitting than before.

Mid way through, Merlin pulled his legs up onto the couch and leaned sideways, further into Arthur’s space. If they were dating, Arthur would have known by now, but he couldn’t help thinking of drunk Leon’s dating litmus test, and how close Merlin was getting. They were almost cuddling. And then Merlin’s head was touching Arthur’s shoulder.

“Are we dating?”

Merlin’s head lifted right back off of Arthur’s shoulder.

“I mean,” Merlin said, he looked confused, “I hope so.”

“So we are.”

“Are we not?” Merlin was pulling back even further, and now neither of them were paying attention to the movie.

“I just wanted to be sure,” Arthur said.

“No, you really didn’t know!”

“I—”

Luckily, like with most of Arthur’s social blunders, it seemed to bring Merlin great amusement. Rather than being offended, he started to laugh.

“Well--!”

“Arthur, I put my number in your book and then asked out to coffee!”

“It’s been two months!” Arthur protested. “You’ve known we’ve been dating this whole time and you waited until _just now_ to even put your head on my shoulder!?” Merlin calmed slightly, but Arthur was just getting started. “I would have kissed you weeks ago!”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought you were just interested in the books!”

That set Merlin off laughing again, but as Arthur opened his mouth to protest, or maybe to explain himself, Merlin was there suddenly, smiling. “I’m not just interested in your books.”

He tasted like beer, Arthur’s beer, because he’d stolen sips of it while claiming he really didn’t want a second of his own. Someone was dying in the background on the TV, but Merlin’s hand was on his shoulder and Arthur didn’t want to let go of him, so he didn’t. He had to break the kiss eventually, to breathe, and because he was smiling too much.

“Morgana’s never going to let me live this down.”

Merlin made a curious noise and pushed him back towards the arm of the couch.

“They voted date, when we first went for coffee.”

“Well now I know why you were so convinced it wasn’t,” Merlin said, and in the dark Arthur couldn’t quite bask in his eyes like he would like to, but the TV threw interesting moving shadows across his face, and his cheeks, and it was just as good. “You can’t stand anyone telling you anything.”

Arthur kissed him again. “Well for once, I’m glad to be wrong.”


End file.
